As long as the dude whose modem it is doesn't get charged for overages from public usage, and isn't responsible for any illegal activity that goes on through that public hotspot, I don't really see this as a bad thing.

Granted, it's unlikely to actually be in places useful to the public at large, but still.

I'm sure there's all kinds of evil inherent in this that I don't see, but on first look, it's nice to see Comcast not be a dick about things.

I'm sure Comcast is asking each customer in advance if they can use their electricity for free and increase the EM fields in their house. No? How about advise them they will get a discount to offset the electricity use? Not clear. Thought so.

I'm sure Comcast is asking each customer in advance if they can use their electricity for free and increase the EM fields in their house. No?

The router is already using it's RF chain for the customer wireless, having a second SSID does nothing to increase power usage.

Several ISPs around the world have been doing this for years and I think it's great, as long as the user can turn it off. It's not metered on the customer side, it's VLAN'd off (different public IP actually), QoS'd below the customer traffic. The biggest benefit is Comcast is gigantic, and that means you have a high likelihood of getting free wifi somewhere if you need it (and are a Comcast customer of course).

Expanding the network so their wired customers have wireless access most anywhere sounds downright noble. They'll pay a few dollars extra / modem if it means really improving the experience of their users.

Consider this in the context of their aggressive attempts to implement bandwidth caps (and $$$ / GB after the cap) and it all starts to sound quite sinister.

Might I also add that the router in question also has about 1/4 of the range of my Cisco Dual-Band N? By all means, use my wifi if you are in my driveway. My laptop is 3 feet away from that piece of junk and it hardly recognized it.

That is, until I asked for a Modem without a router and use my Cisco one. No public hotspot. Easy to access. No monthly "rental" fee. Nice and easy. Now to replace that junk modem they gave me with a good one, just haven't gotten to that part yet.

Could you sue Comcast for stealing your electricity? I'm sure it's only a few cents a month, but do you think Comcast wouldn't send your account to a debt collector if you tried underpaying by a few cents every month?

As a agent in training from comcast and as a person with an IT background. if a caller calls me, I will allow them to change the public wifi options. even if it would cost me my job. with the laws and courts being so wishy washy on what is deemed under the responsibility of the wifi owner. I just cant recommend this to the average family of the USA.

Expanding the network so their wired customers have wireless access most anywhere sounds downright noble. They'll pay a few dollars extra / modem if it means really improving the experience of their users.

Consider this in the context of their aggressive attempts to implement bandwidth caps (and $$$ / GB after the cap) and it all starts to sound quite sinister.

I go over the cap every month, and haven't been charged a dime much less throttled. They send me a nastygram every month, but I tell them I'll go to Verizon if it bothers them so much. Funny thing is, every year they come knocking on my door (literally) asking me to upgrade.

I used to do this on my own until I got a letter from comcast about downloading a music torrent.Edit: ran an open guest network

Send Comcast the letter and explain that their guest network is responsible. Let us know what they say!

Since you have to log into the hotspot with an active Comcast/Xfinity ID they know which user all the data belongs to. Same way they know which IP is assigned to your modem at home. There is no anonymity in this.

Whether or not it costs you anything performance wise is somewhat irrelevant, Comcast are using existing customers (and the internet connections they pay for) to create their own WiFi network. Inevitably this will be used for marketing purposes etc.

Personally I'd rather not help them out for free. If they want a WiFi network to offer customers they should either build one or offer customers a real incentive for opting in to these hotspots.

I'd be far more concerned about someone abusing this to download kiddie porn or less distasteful but still illegal uses. Sure, it's "separate" from your regular wi-fi, etc etc - keep that thought in mind when a SWAT team knocks your door down because they traced an i.p. address to your house, "hotspot" or not. You are going to trust COMCAST to get this right?

Even if the mistake is discovered ("Oops! Sorry! That wasn't you after all! Sorry about the boot prints, and your dog) you're still the one with a busted door and neighbors who will avoid you. Think that sounds paranoid? Think again. We live in a country where assholes can get armed SWAT teams busting down doors based on nothing more than a prank call.

Not to mention the small-print opt-out way they are going about is demonstrates they know perfectly well most people wouldn't be cool with this idea if it was stated more plainly.

Hell to the motherfucking no. As a Comcast Business customer I would probably not be subjected to this bullshit, but I made a point to reject that fucking piece of shit they call a modem and buy my own that doesn't have... ugh... antennae sticking out of it. I still think I'll call the business rep and raise hell over this malicious business practice - a pointless exercise sure but why not. Cell phone users that want to "borrow" my internet can connected through my exploit infested gateway and suck my payload.

As long as the dude whose modem it is doesn't get charged for overages from public usage, and isn't responsible for any illegal activity that goes on through that public hotspot, I don't really see this as a bad thing.

Granted, it's unlikely to actually be in places useful to the public at large, but still.

I'm sure there's all kinds of evil inherent in this that I don't see, but on first look, it's nice to see Comcast not be a dick about things.

One sure hopes their authentication is rock solid. Because there is more at issue than bandwidth and who pays for traffic, once that traffic facilitates illicit activity, for example child porn. Your ComCast credentials just got significantly more valuable, me thinks.

EDIT: keep your fingers crossed that nobody will social engineer a ComCast rep into resetting your password over the phone and then use your account to log into someone else's public wifi for something questionable (I would expect the worst).

As a agent in training from comcast and as a person with an IT background. if a caller calls me, I will allow them to change the public wifi options. even if it would cost me my job.

So I assume, from this, that the article's speculation is correct in that Comcast does not make it easy for customers to disable this feature? If they're threatening their agents' jobs, I would expect not.

I'm probably a bit too concerned about it, but the beacons and probe requests from and to the secondary SSID is going to cut into the available air time on whatever channel that Comcast access point is broadcasting on.

If you don't have any control of what channel the access point is running on, you could see degraded performance of your own access points. Especially if they are allowing 802.11b clients to connect to it and it was in a busy area or heavily loaded.

Whether or not it costs you anything performance wise is somewhat irrelevant, Comcast are using existing customers (and the internet connections they pay for) to create their own WiFi network. Inevitably this will be used for marketing purposes etc.

Personally I'd rather not help them out for free. If they want a WiFi network to offer customers they should either build one or offer customers a real incentive for opting in to these hotspots.

Agreed. Comcast is definitely benefiting one way or another, even if it's just goodwill as shown in these comments. At the very least they should give some nominal discount to the broadband bill.

Just based on the stories I read about Comcast, I definitely would not do anything to "help" them, even if it's completely free for me.

As long as the dude whose modem it is doesn't get charged for overages from public usage, and isn't responsible for any illegal activity that goes on through that public hotspot, I don't really see this as a bad thing.

Granted, it's unlikely to actually be in places useful to the public at large, but still.

I'm sure there's all kinds of evil inherent in this that I don't see, but on first look, it's nice to see Comcast not be a dick about things.

Oh and I don't buy that for a second. Try explaining it's a public access point to the cops while they're kicking down your door, curbstomping you and shooting your dog repeatedly in the face. You cannot let people onto YOUR internet, because people are horrible and cannot be trusted with anything nice. and it is YOUR internet, they have no right to it, and comcast is blowing a shotgun sized hole through your netsec. Pretty much with no justification whatsoever.

Also cops are inherently violent animals with minimal educations, so I would never do anything so likely to draw their violence as running a public hotspot. That is insane.

The cops are not going to kick in your door, again this is not an anonymous connection.

They are going to go to look up an IP address, see it belongs to Comcast, send a customer info request and Comcast is going to respond "This was a customer hotspot, the customer logged into it was XXX"

As a agent in training from comcast and as a person with an IT background. if a caller calls me, I will allow them to change the public wifi options. even if it would cost me my job.

So I assume, from this, that the article's speculation is correct in that Comcast does not make it easy for customers to disable this feature? If they're threatening their agents' jobs, I would expect not.

In our job description, we are supposedly to follow scripts and protocols. If we do not, Q/A will mark negative points on the quality of work we do. If its in our scripts to persuade the customer and the agents have enough negative points onto his record. then yes, we can loose our job due to poor performance.

Whether or not it costs you anything performance wise is somewhat irrelevant, Comcast are using existing customers (and the internet connections they pay for) to create their own WiFi network. Inevitably this will be used for marketing purposes etc.

Personally I'd rather not help them out for free. If they want a WiFi network to offer customers they should either build one or offer customers a real incentive for opting in to these hotspots.

Agreed. Comcast is definitely benefiting one way or another, even if it's just goodwill as shown in these comments. At the very least they should give some nominal discount to the broadband bill.

Just based on the stories I read about Comcast, I definitely would not do anything to "help" them, even if it's completely free for me.

I think the end game here is to provide offload services for wireless carriers inside the home. If they were to strike up an agreement with XYZ cell company for instance, they could lease access to the public wifi SSID to a carrier, have the phones automatically authenticate on it, get the handset off the tower and free up licensed spectrum. So basically you would be paying Comcast to use your electricity and unused bandwidth to resell it to another party.

Not to mention you monitoring your home internet connection and troubleshooting it when it goes down before they send a tech out!

The cops are not going to kick in your door, again this is not an anonymous connection.

They are going to go to look up an IP address, see it belongs to Comcast, send a customer info request and Comcast is going to respond "This was a customer hotspot, the customer logged into it was XXX"

Screw sharing my WIFI for any comcrap customer (I am one as well). I prefer to go ahead and take control over my neighbors connections use it freely. Whether they know or not is irrelevant. All it takes it a bit of know how with the right "pringles can antenna" and I have the bandwidth I need ontop of my own. A little knoppix ISO and a DD-WART wireless router and you all the tools you need.

Not that I would ever do something like what I described. But I will be damned if I will allow anyone to use my connections.

Whether or not it costs you anything performance wise is somewhat irrelevant, Comcast are using existing customers (and the internet connections they pay for) to create their own WiFi network. Inevitably this will be used for marketing purposes etc.

Personally I'd rather not help them out for free. If they want a WiFi network to offer customers they should either build one or offer customers a real incentive for opting in to these hotspots.

They get free access to those WiFi hotspots when they are away from home. That sounds like a real incentive, but I guess it doesn't jibe with the Comcast-is-evil-but-we-are-never-greedy-bastards theme around here.

The cops are not going to kick in your door, again this is not an anonymous connection.

They are going to go to look up an IP address, see it belongs to Comcast, send a customer info request and Comcast is going to respond "This was a customer hotspot, the customer logged into it was XXX"

Maybe. Or maybe they will make a mistake out of you. Explain that one after your SO/BBF bails you out of jail.

Letting guests you don't know too well use your connection is a little dodgy. Letting strangers use your connection is insane.

On the one hand, I think it sucks that they aren't being more transparent about this.

I also think it is stupid that they aren't being more up front about this about this, because I'd think a lot of Comcast customers would consider it a feature that their Cable Internet comes with WiFi access away from home.

Finally, as much as I dislike the local ISP monopolies/duopolies, I'm quite happy if they get into a fight with the cellular carriers, and by doing this, Comcast is cutting into the business of cellular carriers.

In our job description, we are supposedly to follow scripts and protocols. If we do not, Q/A will mark negative points on the quality of work we do. If its in our scripts to persuade the customer and the agents have enough negative points onto his record. then yes, we can loose our job due to poor performance.

The cops are not going to kick in your door, again this is not an anonymous connection.

They are going to go to look up an IP address, see it belongs to Comcast, send a customer info request and Comcast is going to respond "This was a customer hotspot, the customer logged into it was XXX"

Because police never shoot first and ask questions eventually.

You don't understand. The police can't simply trace a connection to your house. They'll have to involve Comcast, and Comcast will have the IP associated with the user that authenticated on the wifi network. It's as separate from your connection as your neighbor's wifi.

I'm glad this is getting more attention. My modem recently went wonky and I traded in for a new one, but they told me they no longer had any of the "modem only" models in stock. I dropped by a Best Buy and bought a modem but went home w/ the Comcast one too.

The Comcast reps were very pleasant and although the first one I spoke with actually didn't know what she was doing, the second person I spoke with was able to successfully kill the WiFi signal from the modem/router. I have the Best Buy one ready to go if I am unhappy with the Comcast "gateway," but the reason I'm using this is because it has the phone line jack in the back and I do have their triple play which gives me voice service too.

My first thought is "They complain about the cost of bits and how they can't upgrade our houses, but there's bandwidth to support something like this?"

It seems to me that this will either negatively impact bandwidth (even if not at your hotspot, for your network segment as a whole), or they're lying through their teeth about the availability (or lack thereof) of bits.

The second network won't slow your primary connection down, at least not much. "The broadband connection to your home will be unaffected by the XFINITY Wi-Fi feature," Comcast says. "Your in-home Wi-Fi network, as well as XFINITY Wi-Fi, use shared spectrum, and as with any shared medium there can be some impact as more devices share Wi-Fi. We have provisioned the XFINITY Wi-Fi feature to support robust usage, and therefore, we anticipate minimal impact to the in-home Wi-Fi network."